I’m Frank Nelson Drake. I’m running for the U.S. Congress in the Fifth District.

In my 30 years of business, I’ve closed hundreds of deals and talked with thousands of people. I’ve worked with people from all walks of life, and I’ve done my best to improve their lives. From all of those experiences, I know people want someone like that in Washington, D.C., fighting day in and day out to help improve the lives of everyone in this great nation.

The first thing I’ll do is — show up! Seems like an easy thing to do, but unfortunately our current congressman has a problem making it in to work. U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison has missed the most votes on average of any current Minnesota congressperson, almost twice as much as the next person. (Source: propublica.org.) If you missed that much work, you’d lose your job. I pledge when I’m in Congress, I will show up ready to work every single day and won’t take money from lobbyists.

When I get to work for you, I’ll be focusing on issues I hear about from people around the district. Education, homeownership, getting families’ health care costs under control and creating economic opportunities for people from every background.

What I would like to address is increasing prosperity. This means creating full-time jobs that pay more than the minimum wage, lowering health care costs for middle-class families, modernizing education, increasing homeownership and ending the double standard on credit reporting.

Coming from a hardworking family, I know that the current public debt we are adding to the deficit is massively unsustainable, that continuing on this path will burden future generations. And protecting Americans against poorly negotiated trade deals will save millions of American jobs.

We need to modernize our education system so we can catch up to the rest of the world. We have the shortest school calendar of any developed country, and we spend the most money per student and yet we rank 17th in the world. We used to lead in education, but when the rest of the countries in the world modernized their school systems, they passed us up. We’re still on a 19th-century school calendar. How many children do you know who spend the summer working in the fields?

I want to reform the Affordable Care Act to allow people to tailor their plans to what they need. Did you know that every person in Minnesota has to carry over 70 mandated health coverages? Many of these coverages you will never need, but you have to pay for each of them. My plan would allow greater flexibility on the health care exchanges, allowing people to choose some of their coverage — all while protecting people from being denied coverage because of a preexisting condition.

I want to end the double standard in credit reporting and bring credit into the 21st century. Credit has changed over the past 20 years. Each month, people pay many of their bills, receiving no positive credit. However, when there’s a problem or dispute, it can go on their credit report as a negative mark. These types of games creditors play block economic growth. How many great business ideas have died when the person with the idea was denied a simple credit card or small-business loan. My plan would force companies to either report all of the time or none of the time.

I will be different. I will show up. I will work to improve lives. I’m Frank Nelson Drake, and I ask for your vote Nov. 8.

Frank Nelson Drake is the Republican candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s Fifth District.